Before we cover the subject matter of this chapter, I would like to add a word of burden. In the Lord’s recovery, particularly at the present time, all the elders, co-workers, full-timers, and serving ones must see the vision concerning the Triune God. Otherwise, the foundation of your service will be neither adequate nor firm. Sooner or later you will realize that your knowledge is just like a house built upon an insecure foundation, with one stone missing here and a cornerstone missing there. This kind of foundation will have problems sooner or later. In today’s Christianity very few who serve the Lord have the vision of the Triune God as their foundation. They are afraid to talk about this matter and are also unwilling to spend time to study it. However, we must be clear that the entire Bible with sixty-six books is constructed with the Trinity.
I would like to use the building of a meeting hall as an illustration. Thirty-seven years ago I took the lead in Shanghai to build the first big meeting hall in the Lord’s recovery. That meeting hall, which was located on Nanyang Road, could seat a total of five thousand. The two ends of the hall were quite far from one another. Back then, most architects did not approve of constructing a building with two ends over one hundred feet apart. This was because they felt that such a building would not be safe, since it was not possible to have beams of that length. Therefore, the design at that time was to have two supporting pillars in the middle and another two on each side. Thus, the meeting hall was divided into four sections; each section could seat one thousand two hundred fifty people, and the total seating capacity was five thousand people. If pillars were erected only on the two sides and not in the middle of the hall, the beams would not be secure.
However, when we built the meeting hall in Anaheim, the situation was altogether different. That hall is quite large-about two hundred and twenty feet long and one hundred and ten feet wide. In appearance, it is wood on top and stone at the bottom. In reality, the frame of that large meeting hall was neither wood nor stone but altogether steel. The two huge pillars at each end of the hall were steel. The beams are steel, and each beam is about one hundred and ten feet long. There are no other supporting pillars in the hall besides those on the two sides. The steel beams were made in Iowa under the supervision of the brothers, transported to Anaheim under their escort, and set up in the building also under their oversight. Furthermore, the steel beams were covered first with a layer of cement and then with a layer of stones. Therefore, when you go to the meeting hall in Anaheim, you cannot see any steel; you can only see the stones, which are for beauty, for adornment. Of course, we cannot say that the stones have no supporting strength at all; but the main strength for holding up the building lies with the steel pillars and steel beams.
By this illustration we can see clearly that the sixty-six books of the Bible are altogether built upon the Divine Trinity as their support and framework, and all the other parts are just accessories. Regretfully, Bible readers today are just like those who look at the appearance of the Anaheim meeting hall, paying attention only to whether the stones are beautiful and whether the wood is perfect. Actually, whether it is beautiful or not and whether it is perfect or not does not have any harmful effect; at least it does not endanger your life. Because the Anaheim meeting hall is supported by steel pillars, whether it seats three thousand or four thousand people, it stands there securely like a fortress or a small mountain. It cannot be affected by anything except perhaps a very great earthquake. In the same principle, the Trinity is the framework of the entire Bible, and this is especially true with the book of Ephesians in the New Testament. If you do not know the Triune God, you cannot comprehend the profoundness of Ephesians, because every chapter of this book has the Divine Trinity as its framework.
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